Drowning In A Sea Of Memories

This evening I decided to tackle the enormous chore of cleaning out my bedroom.  It has gotten to near-hoarder status and I knew it would be no small task.  But generally, when I am clearing away old things and cleaning a space, I feel my mood lift as I go.  It’s as if the emotional baggage, attached to the things I own, leaves when the items leave.  But not tonight.

Tonight, as I came across one thing after another, reminding me of the past few years and what I’ve been through, it was as if it got harder to move…harder to breath.  I felt like I was in emotional quicksand and each new forgotten thing I discovered was another weight attached to my feet, pulling me under.  I eventually had to stop cleaning because I became (and still am) so emotionally spent that I just can’t take any more right now. 

Here are a few of the things I came across, in no particular order:

• A letter from a cousin, dated four months after my wedding, asking how I was doing and if I was pregnant yet?
• An article on how to keep a marriage alive during infertility
• Two years worth of Pregnancy & Newborn, and Fit Pregnancy magazines
• Four baby name books, multiple lists of my favorite baby names and my family tree- to use to find “family baby names”
• The box that my engagement ring was in when my husband proposed…before we knew how rough the next few years would be
• The multitude of spreadsheets I made to evaluate egg donors
• An old “vision board” made during a workshop at my infertility center (it was fun to make but it clearly didn’t work)
• All of the paperwork ever given to me by doctors about endometriosis, infertility, IUI’s, IVF’s, my husband’s semen analysis, surgical instructions and discharge sheets, and pictures of my insides during the last few surgeries (when stacked, these papers literally go up to my hip…and I’m 5’7”).
• Three journals that I have kept at various times through my infertility journey (looking over some entries, I realize that it might be best to destroy the journals because it hurts me to read the depths of despair I’ve found myself in, in the past…and The Prince and I have been in some tough times, that I’d forgotten about and would prefer to forget about again.)
• Four different types of lubricants that are supposed to be “baby making friendly,” from back in the day when I believed that there was an off chance that we would get pregnant naturally between IVF cycles
• And…the pictures of my embryos from the couple of IVF cycles that actually made it to transfer.  I look at those pictures and it feels like I am looking at pictures of my children who died.  I know that is terrible and I certainly do not mean to belittle the pain of anyone who has had a miscarriage, still birth, or has had a child die at a young age.  I can’t imagine that pain…but I know that I wouldn’t be strong enough to survive it because looking at the embryo pictures makes me break down in tears.  And yet, I can’t bring myself to throw them away.

The truth is, I didn’t throw away anything in this list, except for the email from my cousin and the article on marriage.  I feel like I need to let some of the other things go…like the mountain of fertility paperwork or the journals.  But the idea of throwing these things out makes me panic.  Like I’m giving up on having a baby if I let that stuff go.  Or like the pain isn’t real or wasn’t as bad if I don’t have “mementos” to remind me of how awful it was.  That’s ridiculous of course…there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t remember how much IF has hurt…but the irrational fear is there, anyways. And it is the same with all of the extra medications and needles I have.  I need to donate them back to the clinic, for people who can’t afford them…but if I let them go, then it is official that I am not trying ever again with my eggs.  I know that is the decision we’ve made, but for some reason, giving away the medication makes it too real.  Now I know why I’ve buried myself with this crap in my bedroom…the alternative is facing down demons I’m not ready to deal with yet.  But if not now, when?

Courage To Let It All Go

The hero in each fairy tale has to be brave in the face of adversity.  After all, courage is a key component of reaching “happily ever after.”  I think that every person facing infertility displays courage just by putting one foot in front of the other each day, in spite of the pain and fear.  But I was reading my recent posts and I think that I'm not being very courageous lately.  There is still a lot of self-pity creeping into my thoughts.  But I think I've figured out a way to start being more fearless.

Last night, I went to my Fertility Yoga class, as I normally do on Thursday nights.  After centering ourselves, our instructor always provides all of the members of my class with an opportunity to make an “intention” – a thought or desire that you carry with you throughout your practice that day, letting it seep into your heart and become a part of you.  For ages, my intention each yoga class has been “Peace.”  I feel like infertility has thrown my world into a constant state of flux and I just need to be at peace once in awhile.  But last night, when I normally would have embraced the intention of “Peace,” a loud and clear voice said “Let it go.”  And for just a second, I was annoyed.  I thought, “that’s not my intention…where did that come from?”  But I’ve learned in yoga and meditation that sometimes the part of you that silently observes your life from an objective standpoint, only speaking to you when necessary, knows more about what you need than the part of you that is always thinking and doing and talking.  So I went with the flow and engaged in a conversation with that other part of myself (I know.  I seem to have a habit of talking to myself lately).  The conversation went something like this…

“Let it go.”

“Let go of what?”

“All of it”

“What the hell is all of it?”

“You know”

“Really, because I probably wouldn’t be talking to myself if I knew…I would be letting go of whatever ‘it’ is.”

“Just breathe and let it all go.”

At that point, I decided to stop fighting with myself and to just follow my own advice (how screwed up is this sounding).  I took a deep breath.  Nothing.  So I took another and immediately thought about a comment on my post from a few days ago, regarding hurtful things that my mother has said to me.  I realized that I wrote what my mother had said to me because I’m still carrying around the hurt from every insensitive remark she has made to me.  So I breathed some more and thought “Let that go.”  I know it sounds hokey, but I could literally feel a physical difference.  My hips relaxed more and I went deeper into the pose and my breath.  I forgave her and even realized that she may not need forgiving because she isn’t trying to hurt me, she just doesn't know any better.  Given the pleasant outcome of that exercise, I decided to go for it again.

I asked myself “What else?”  Like a flood, I was faced with a whole bunch of garbage I’ve been toting around.  It almost made me cry to realize just how much there was.  And in spite of the lovely feeling I described above, my first response to the flood of baggage was to push it down, like I always do, leaving it for another day “when I might be strong enough to deal with it.”  But then I thought, “What if today I’m strong enough?  What if I just need to be brave?”

So, I took another breath and let the first thing that came to my mind wash over me.  I experienced the fear that I have that the egg donor cycle is not going to work.  I felt the fear of being disappointed and disappointing my husband.  That fear is like a huge monster, looming over me every single day that I wait to start my cycle.  But I decided that I am strong enough right now to face down that monster.  I didn’t perform some indepth analysis of why it is okay to be afraid or why it is better to be positive going into a cycle, I simply thought "Enough. I’m letting that fear go.  What is meant to be will be."  I can’t say that the beast is now gone forever, but upon intending to let the fear go, I felt peace (which was not my intention for the yoga class, but is what I ultimately received by following my intuition and “letting it go”). 

I can’t speak for everyone else, but on my journey, there are many times that the burden has just gotten too heavy to carry.  Lately, I've been going through one of those times.  So instead of sitting down on the side of the road and giving up on being a mother, I’m just going to let go of all of the baggage and the pain and the hurt feelings.  I can go back and pick those things up later if there is some crazy reason that I need them, but for now, the baggage I’m carrying is not providing armor to protect me from future hurt, it’s just stopping me from progressing into the future.  So I will keep “letting it go,” piece by piece…slaying one monster after another…until I have nothing left to let go of and am an empty vessel, ready to listen to that internal voice again and embarking on the next leg of my journey.